A Cruel Crescent
by DreadNot
Summary: The Ripley Scroll is the origin of Alucard's signature quote, The bird of Hermes... One shot musings around excerpts from the scroll.


_In the sea without lees  
Standeth the bird of Hermes  
Eating his wings variable  
And maketh himself yet full stable  
When all his feathers be from him gone  
He standeth still here as a stone_

"Alucard."

"Yes, my Master?"

"Come inside. Seeing you standing out there in the snow makes me cold. Come into my office and play a game of chess with me."

"Do you command it?"

Integra sighed in exasperation, "No, I don't _command_ it. I wouldn't _command_ you to do something as trivial as play a game."

"Then I will stay here." He turned his back on her and stared up at the crescent moon. His presence marred the pristine snow like spilled blood.

ooo

_Here is now both white and red  
And all so the stone to quicken the dead  
All and some without fable  
Both hard and soft and malleable  
Understand now well and right  
And thank you God of this sight_

"Master?"

"What is it Police Girl?" She winced at the impatience in his voice.

"You don't need to snap at me!"

He turned from his scrutiny of the sky and looked at her. She squirmed under his regard and dug patterns in the snow with her shoe. His scowl softened. She was so frustrating, but so endearing. _Why did I make her a Midian? Even I don't know what compelled me to do it._

"What is it, Seras? Did someone send you to get me?"

She smiled when he used her name. He did it so rarely. "No Master. I just… I just wanted to talk to you. We never talk and I still have so much to learn."

"Never have truer words been spoken, Seras Victoria. What do you think I can teach you tonight?"

She scowled back at him. "Why do you have to do that? You made me what I am and you are always making it clear that I'm not good enough! Why don't _you_ tell me what I should learn for a change?"

Suddenly he was looming over her. "Learn to be ruthless. Learn to kill. Learn not to flinch when I berate you. Learn to be strong. _Learn that I will not always be there to protect you!" _

She had stepped back under the weight of his words. He watched as she collected herself and stood tall. _As tall as that tiny woman can get._ He chuckled.

She walked up to him and poked him in the chest, "Learn to be responsible! Learn to care! Learn to be nice! _Learn some bloody manners!_" She turned and walked away before he could see her cry.

His laughter followed her back into the mansion.

ooo

_**The bird of Hermes is my name eating my wings to make me tame.**_

_**The Red Sea. The Red Sol. The Red Elixir Vitae.  
Red Stone. White Stone. Elixir Vitae. Luna in Crescent.**_

He sat in his throne. Near to hand was a wine glass with crimson contents. He picked it up and sniffed. A curled lip, a shining fang and the glass crashed against the wall.

He faded from the room.

These nights where the moon rode the sky like Death's scythe were always restless ones for him. He never understood why. The full moon might bring out his lust for blood, but that sliver of silver in the sky brought out his need to be cruel.

Red eyes shone from an alley. Couples walked by, wrapped up in each other, oblivious to the danger so near.

He pushed at the wards. He wanted, no he _needed_ to feed. He needed hot blood, fear and pain. He needed the rush of a stolen soul. _He_ _needed his freedom!_

ooo

_I shall you tell with plain declaration  
Where, how, and what is my generation  
Omogeni is my Father  
And Magnesia is my Mother  
And Azot truly is my Sister  
And Kibrick forsooth is my Brother  
The Serpent of Arabia is my name  
The which is leader of all this game  
That sometime was both wood and wild  
And now I am both meek and mild_

He fought and lost. Every time he prepared to seize his prey, the searing pain of the wards pushed him back into the shadow.

Blood flowed from the wounds his claws made in his own flesh. He rent himself as a mourner would rend his clothes.

He screamed at the moon's mocking crescent and frightened humans fled, primal instincts telling them to run, to _hide_, that the monster under the bed had come out to hunt.

ooo

_The Sun and the Moon with their might  
Have chastised me that was so light  
My wings that me brought  
Hither and thither where I thought  
Now with their might they down me pull,  
And bring me where they will_

He stood in Integra's bedroom. She slept scant feet from him.

He watched his jailer. He watched the pulse beat in her throat, the slow rise and fall of her chest.

He could not touch her. He could not rip out her throat. He could not do what he so desperately needed to do tonight. He could feel the seals heating against his soul as he contemplated bathing in her blood and finally running free once more.

He slipped into her mind to do what little harm he could.

ooo

_The Blood of mine heart I wish  
Now causeth both joy and blisse  
And dissolveth the very Stone  
And knitteth him ere he have done  
Now maketh hard that was lix  
And causeth him to be fix_

She was crawling through the ducts. Her father was not yet in the ground. Her uncle's hounds bayed for her blood. She was drenched in fear and grief.

He pushed her mind deep into the memories of their first meeting. It was the tiniest loophole in the wards that prevented him from harming her. He wasn't harming her, that had already been done. He was merely _reminding_ her.

He soothed his need to bring pain in her memories. He washed himself in her sorrow. He basked in her memories of their first meeting and eased his thirst for blood with the sweet taste of hers those ten years past.

ooo

_Of my blood and water I wish  
Plenty in all the World there is  
It runneth in every place  
Who it findeth he hath grace  
In the World it runneth over all  
And goeth round as a ball_

He intruded on Walter's bedchamber. _This seems to be my night for watching humans sleep. _

He watched his old companion's breathing for a few minutes, ruminating on the nature of time and change and humanity. He was remembering a brash young man who feared nothing, not even the No Life King. He could have loved Walter, had he but allowed it.

The cruel crescent caught his eye. _Even the heavens wield a blade._ _One day it will cut his line as surely as Atropos ever could. _He could not resist the lunar call to cruelty.

"Walter," he smiled as the old man started from his dreams.

"Alucard? Is there a problem? Sir Integra…"

"A minor problem, if dealt with quickly. I'm afraid the Police Girl made a mess of my evening's meal. Clumsy child. I will need another blood bag if I am to keep my restraint tonight."

He pretended not to notice Walter's sniff of distaste. _A little discord sown may yield a lovely crop of dissent later._ "Thank you for your attention to this problem." He faded away.

ooo

_But thou understand well this  
Of the worke thou shalt miss  
Therefore know ere thou begin  
What he is and all his kin  
Many a name he hath full sure  
And all is but one Nature  
Thou must part him in three  
And then knit him as the Trinity  
And make them all but one  
Lo here is the Philosophers Stone_

Walter had come and gone. His cup once more, runneth over. He licked the dribble of blood down the side of the glass and stared down at his last dominion. _The bird of Hermes is my name…_

Integra had asked him about the quote on his coffin. He had not replied. She didn't understand and wasn't ready yet. He hoped she would be ready some day. If not her, perhaps her child, or her child's child. One day, he would show a Hellsing the secret of the Philosopher's Stone and he would have his revenge on Abraham and his line. He would have his child of the Hellsing blood. The lead he would transform into gold would be the clay of a human into the stone of a nosferatu.

_

* * *

A/N The text of the poem is from a "modernized" version of the Ripley Scroll, an alchemical…poem? Treatise?  
I've had a bit too much time for introspection recently, and thus the spate of writing you folks have been subjected to. Chapter 2 of War in the Fog comes slowly for me, and I find that I keep getting distracted by other things that want to be written. Who needs therapy when you can make other people read your ramblings? Thanks.  
_


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